Paul Batz's Blog, page 7

Secure Your Spot at the Good Leadership Conference

You will only find two Good Leadership Breakfasts on the calendar this fall – because something exciting is in store: The Good Leadership Conference.  

On Friday, November 22, The Good Leadership Conference will punctuate the year-long Accountability Research Project spearheaded by Good Leadership and a Steering Team of organizations from across the country.  

Attendees will participate in a world-class experience, including interactive audience response research, panel discussions, and workshops with new healthy accountability tools. And, of course it’s Good Leadership, so you know the event will be fun! You will be treated to exceptional live music, fantastic food catered by D’Amico, and a vibrant happy hour.  

Why Are We Doing This?

Our mission is to spread goodness because we have proven: goodness pays. Goodness in business is when people thrive together in a culture of encouragement, accountability, and positive teamwork. There is no goodness without accountability – accountability is the glue. Our clients are asking: Can we re-think accountability?  

Why Participate?Be one of the first to learn the “secrets” to healthy accountability.  Peer-to-peer workshops.  Positivity boost: live music & fun.  Start a movement around healthy accountability.  Branding for your employees, organizations, and clients.  How Can You Be in the Room?

Participation in the Good Leadership Conference allows your organization to pioneer a new era defined by healthy accountability. Tables are limited, so ensure your organizations spot in the conference by emailing Jill (jill@goodleadership.com).  

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The Key to Creating Consistency in Your Organization

We’re entering a new age where managers are once again celebrated as catalysts for high-performing organizations.  

On the newest episode of the Good Leadership Podcast, Paul Batz and I discuss how “managers” have been overlooked in business vernacular for decades, lost in the shadow of the leadership movement. Today, with the shift toward highly collaborative hybrid workplaces, organizations are rediscovering the importance of manager consistency in building culture and creating healthy accountability. Listen to the full episode here. 

Learning Through Research

The theme of the Good Leadership Breakfast spring series was Celebrating the Magic of Managers. The featured speakers all echoed the same message about managers in just slightly different phrasing: Managers are the keepers of the culture. 

Through research and surveys, outside and inside the Breakfast, the results supported the idea that managers are overlooked and hold the most responsibility and accountability: 

82% said that managers are where the most responsibility and accountability lie within the organization 71% of managers said that they don’t feel fully equipped to be effective as a manager  76% of managers said they don’t feel supported by senior leadership 70% of managers said they don’t feel adequately trained to be an effective manager 

Managers are the keepers of the culture – they are the direct conduit to keeping a spirit of healthy accountability, and they are telling us they are not equipped or trained to do it. 

Manager Consistency Playbooks

Manager consistency is about providing the right models and framework that managers can regularly use, so that employees are fully engaged in their work, know where they fit in the team, and know why they matter in the organization. Managers are the central part in many areas of the organization – and that’s a lot of weight to carry. It’s important that they are not overlooked, underappreciated, or underdeveloped. 

Research shows that these three playbooks deliver the highest return on investment in highly collaborative workplaces: 

Consistent Teaming Methodology: People are often working on multiple teams as organizations are shifting to a more collaborative culture. But there’s whiplash for people switching between teams that function differently. This playbook aims to dispel the inconsistency for people working on multiple teams or groups. 

Coaching Your Team: Managers often don’t know whether they are coaching for performance or growth. When coaching is insight driven and aspirational in nature, people can see what they are moving towards. And, when managers are skillful coaches, we see the best metrics go through the roof. 

Career Conversations: People want to know where they are going and how they will get there. This playbook allows managers to create that connection for employees, while also giving them ownership of their development.  

Managers are craving this type of consistency and framework. This isn’t another list of policies to adhere to – this is about giving managers the opportunity to decide to have consistent conversations around teaming, coaching, and careers. It’s about seeing them, so they aren’t overlooked, appreciating their contribution to the organization, and investing in their development. 

Reach out to info@goodleadership.com to start creating consistency in your organization.  

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Unlocking Potential with the Aspirational Framework: Insights from the Coaches Lunch

Recently, Good Leadership hosted a Coaches Lunch at the Minneapolis office, where we got the chance to share an incredible environment of knowledge and collaboration. Bringing together the community of coaches with years of experience, who are dedicated to the work they do, is always a highlight for the Good Leadership Team.  

The Power of the Aspirational Framework 

At this lunch, the discussion centered around a tool that’s essential for Good Leadership coaching: The Aspirational Framework. This tool is an anchor in our approach, distinguishing coaching from other firms. Coaching at Good Leadership is special, because the coaching here isn’t about “fixing” someone or implying they are broken; it’s about inspiring individuals to think aspirationally about their futures. The Good Leadership Coaches guide them to consider what they want for themselves, personally and professionally, for their teams, and for their organizations.  

The Aspirational Framework encourages coachees to focus on personal and professional goals across different timeframes: 1 year, 3 years, 7 years, and 20 years ahead. It’s a baseline for short- and long-term business planning. The true antidote for a problem is to be aspirational, and it is fundamental to any coaching engagement.  

The Framework Breakdown 20 years ahead – The Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG): What is your BHAG for how your organization will change the world 20 years from now? 7 years ahead – The Big Opportunity: What is the Big Opportunity that will change your industry and your organization forever, in a good way? 3 years ahead – Your Breakthrough Goals: What Breakthrough Goals can you set that are so big, you don’t know how to do it… but if you do it, will change you forever for the better? 1 year ahead – Our Can’t Miss Priority: What are the Can’t Miss Priorities the team needs to measure with the Public Scorecard this year?  Dream Big  

Imagining 20 years into the future can be daunting. The year 2044 seems so far away, and the rapid changes in our world such as COVID remind us of its unpredictability. Will your organization still exist? Will you have moved on to a different organization or retired?  

However – looking 20 years ahead gives us the room to dream big. And that’s what Good Leadership Coaches do best – creating the space so you can dream about your life and what it can look like. It’s not only about setting stretch goals for yourself, but also defining a trajectory that inspires and motivates your efforts.  

Email info@goodleadership.com if you would like a copy of this tool, even if it’s just to print out and hang on the wall to keep those aspirations churning.  

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From Passion to Leadership with Kristine Fortman

Last Thursday, nearly 300 leaders gathered for the 109th Good Leadership Breakfast. The room was charged with a buzzing energy to celebrate the final episode of the spring series, Celebrating the Magic of Managers. The featured speaker was the inspiring Kristine Fortman, CEO of the Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation (MHIF). 

Kristine shared captivating stories from her leadership path – tales of strong, supportive nuns at St. Ben’s who emphasized the importance of women empowering each other, her aspirations to follow in her father’s footsteps as a professor at the University of Minnesota, and her realization that her true passion was in research leadership, a lesson learned from a peer mentor. 

Kristine’s Success Habits

With every Good Leadership Breakfast speaker, we interview a few of their direct reports to identify their leader’s success habits. A success habit is something a leader repeats over and over, because it really works. Kristine’s team highlighted these as her success habits: 

Honor differing/unique talents – different perspectives create innovationMatch leadership styles to situations – being adaptable while still being authenticEncourage questions – “tell me more” 

Kristine is truly an advocate for Celebrating the Magic of Managers. She supports the idea that managers are creators and keepers of the culture. “Impactful things happen when all of us are reading off the same sheet of music,” she stated, emphasizing the need for everyone in the organization to be aligned for the magic to happen.

Looking Ahead

This fall, mark your calendars for the Good Leadership Breakfast series: In September, with Ethan Casson, CEO of the MN Timberwolves & Lynx, and October, Craig Warren, CEO of the Washburn Center for Children.

Additionally, don’t miss the Good Leadership Conference in November, where the groundbreaking accountability research will be unveiled. It’s an opportunity not to be missed for anyone committed to spreading goodness in your organization. 

Reach out to paul@goodleadership.com if you are interested in securing a spot for your organization at the Conference. 

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Insights on Psychological Safety and Accountability from Two New Podcast Episodes

No doubt, you know about our fascination this year for discovering the secrets to healthy accountability. This month, The Good Leadership Podcast recorded two episodes that focus on psychological safety and healthy accountability – two important and related themes.

Psychological Safety Episode

This episode was inspired by an article from the NeuroLeadership Institute titled “Psychological Safety and Accountability: Insights from NLI’s Conversation with Amy Edmondson” that was passed along to Kevin and myself by one of the fellow Good Leadership coaches, Nancy Weidenfeller. The discussion explores the concept of “psychological safety” identified by Google as crucial for high-performing teams, and how this concept relates directly to the Accountability Research Project. You can listen to the episode here.

Key points include:

Psychological safety is not about feeling good all the time.Accountability is about growth, not pain.High-performing teams need healthy tension: both growth and pain.

Psychological safety enforces the “seeks accountability” concept, where employees feel comfortable and confident taking accountability, because it makes them better and they’re working on exciting things. It’s also about balancing relational and structural elements of a team in order to have psychological safety. Safety enables bold actions and healthy tension, crucial for high performance. The key takeaway: Both psychological safety and healthy accountability are essential for a high-performing team.

The Learn-It-All Podcast Episode

I was recently interviewed on the Learn-It-All Podcast with hosts Damon Lembi and Darren Bridgett from LearnIt Training to discuss The Accountability Research Project. This episode dives into the conception of the Accountability Research Project, the changing nature of accountability post-COVID, and the importance of transforming accountability into an organizational competency, that supports a “seeks accountability” culture. You can listen to the episode here.

Key points include:

Effective organizations have employees who seek accountability.Accountability should not be punitive but an organizational strength.The best work teams do is for the leaders they care about. 

So, healthy accountability and psychological safety really rely on each other in order to support a high-performing team. Listeners are encouraged to get involved with the Accountability Research Project by sharing insights, contributing to the research, and participating in the upcoming conference based on the results of the Accountability Research Project. For more details or to get involved, email info@goodleadership.com.

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Kristine Fortman Leading with Heart for Cardiovascular Research and Education

Kristine Fortman, PhD, CEO of the Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation (MHIF)

The final spring episode of the Good Leadership Breakfast is Thursday, May 23. Guests heard inspiring stories from two speakers this season: Rod Young, the CEO of Delta Dental of Minnesota, and Jeff Augustin, Vice President, Global Business Solutions at Merck Pharmaceuticals. 

Rounding out the series on May 23 is Kristine Fortman, PhD, CEO of the Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation (MHIF). The theme of the spring series is Celebrating the Magic of Managers. Kris will share how empowering her teams led MHIF to the prominent place they hold in the cardiovascular space in healthcare today. 

Important Research

MHIF is one of the leading nonprofit cardiovascular research and education institutions in the country – improving the lives of patients with heart disease around the world. Their vision is creating a world without heart and vascular disease. With 8 years as CEO, Kristine is known in her organization as a thoughtful leader, motivated contributor, and inspiring mentor. That’s good leadership. 

Under Kristine’s direction, investments in MHIF research have increased ten-fold; the team conducts 230+ active studies providing hope to 2,200+ patients who find options through research. In 2023, Kristine was named a Most Admired CEO by the Minneapolis St. Paul Business Journal.

Positivity and Joy

Personally, Kristine will bring a ray of sunshine into the Breakfast as she shares both professional and personal insights. She was born and raised in the Minneapolis area, as one of three daughters. In a clever twist of fate, she and her husband are now the parents of three boys!  “I’ve learned so much more about life raising three BOYS!” she laughed. Outside of work she enjoys hiking and yoga, and of course like a true Minnesotan, she loves spending time at the cabin. 

Join Good Leadership for breakfast Thursday, May 23 at the Metropolitan Ballroom in Minneapolis. Reserve your spot now and to be part of Celebrating the Magic of Managers and hear incredible insights from Kristine Fortman. You won’t want to miss it. Get your tickets here.

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Meet Jill Duevel – the “Next Level” Leader at Good Leadership

CEOs and business owners can’t help themselves – they’re always dreaming about how much better everything will be when they reach “the next level.”  That truism applies to “me.”  That’s why I’m so excited to introduce you to the newest member of the Good Leadership team, Jill Duevel.

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Jill started her job as Director of New Business Development yesterday. She is the first person in the 14 ½ years of Good Leadership who is 100% focused on growing the firm and expanding our impact. She represents “the next level” for Good Leadership. Jill has been actively involved in the Good Leadership Breakfast for ten years!  We know her as a person of integrity who brings passion, positive energy and a successful 20+ year track record of business development. Even more important – she walks the talk about how goodness pays.

Why is this so important?

Melinda and I started this organizational effectiveness firm, inspired by the idea that Goodness Pays. Goodness is when people thrive together, in a culture of encouragement, accountability and positive teamwork. Can we agree that we can’t have enough goodness in the world?

Jill’s role will be to attract more good leaders in professional services companies who want to grow with goodness. Her first assignment will be to attract like-minded leaders to invest in table sponsorships for the Good Leadership Conference: Discovering the Secrets to Healthy Accountability. The event, scheduled for November 22, may be the most important gathering we’ve ever hosted. Because “accountability” is the glue that holds the goodness pays idea together.

Please send a note to Jill Duevel here. She wants to hear from you!

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3 Barriers of Shifting to a Teams of Teams Culture

The landscape of organizational dynamics is evolving. We’re all witnessing the shift of the hierarchical, chain-of-command culture to a collaborative, shared commitments culture. Organizations across industries are starting to recognize the value in this transition – it’s not a question of if the shift will happen, it’s a matter of when.  

However, it’s not an easy shift for all organizations to make. Many are facing significant barriers that slow down efforts to fully embrace this new approach.  

These are the three most common barriers hindering organizations in making this change: 

Cultural Misalignment: While leaders know the importance of collaboration, the underlying organizational culture often remains rooted in hierarchical frameworks. Shifting the mindset requires intentional effort and consistent messaging from leadership.  Lack of Consistency: Inconsistency in how teams are built and led across departments and divisions impedes effective collaboration. Without a consistent approach to creating and supporting teams, getting rid of silos and promoting cross-functional collaboration becomes a challenge. Influence of Observable Behavior: Employees closely observe and emulate the behaviors modeled by their leaders. If teams operate with autonomy and in isolation, despite leaders encouraging collaboration, employees are likely to follow the masses.  

As organizations navigate these barriers and embrace the journey toward a Teams of Teams culture, they will no doubt encounter challenges, but the rewards of this are well worth the effort. Collaboration is the cornerstone of success, driving alignment, commitment, and open accountability. 

If you are ready to start making the shift to a consistent, collaborative, shared commitments culture, we’re here to support you every step of the way. Reach out to info@goodleadership.com to learn how we can help you get started.  

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Defining Healthy Accountability

What does it truly mean to hold someone accountable if we take away the concept of “you’re fired”?  

In the most recent episode of The Good Leadership Podcast, my colleague Paul Batz and I discussed: what does healthy accountability really mean? 

Traditionally, accountability has been viewed as negative and punitive, and synonymous with consequences for not meeting expectations. Along with that, it’s often subjective based on people’s character of whether or not they have an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility to account for one’s actions.  

What is Healthy Accountability?

To better understand healthy accountability, we assembled a diverse steering team comprised of 15 members who are volunteering their time, energy, and funds to the Accountability Research Project. Through their initial perspectives, we are shaping the direction of the project.  

At our first steering team meeting, we split the team into groups of three, and asked them to write down statements about how they currently view accountability. These were their first responses:  

Accountability is trust based: frequently communicating, and consistently rewarded – avoids consequences.  The art of possibility: leading from every chair.  It is about consistency, routines, trust, vulnerability, feedback, and belonging in a culture of reward, recognition, communication and clarity.  Consistently providing productive feedback, rather than punitive consequences.  Taking ownership for an error, and knowing who is impacted by this error.  Delivering on what was said and asking for help or checking in with others.  Allowing others to inspect your work because you have shared goals, and seek focus and clarity to achieve those goals.  Personal connections that bring out the best in one another.  Clear roles on a team that is connected, communicative, and disciplined in a culture of curiosity, trust, respect, and grace.  

There’s no question that these statements are powerful; however, there is room for coherence and alignment. As we worked through the starting point for the definition of healthy accountability with the steering team, this question arose: should the word “accountability” go away forever?  

The answer is no. People want to know that they’ve accomplished something good. As leaders, we can reframe the concept of accountability into something positive. It’s our job to role model the power of positive, healthy accountability and provide feedback that facilitates growth and development.  

Interested in contributing to the Accountability Research Project? Your organization can contribute! Email info@goodleadership.com to discover how you and your organization can be involved. You can also take our LinkedIn survey and join us in exploring the definitions of healthy accountability.  

For more insights, listen to the full podcast here.   

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Employee Owners Who Foster Healthy Accountability

Accountability within ESOPs (employee stock ownership plans) has been at the forefront of my thoughts, as I recently attended the Pennsylvania-Delaware ESOP Association Conference. Amidst interactions with employees and owners, the concept of healthy accountability within an employee owner environment resonated profoundly.  

Good Leadership’s table at the Pennsylvania-Delaware ESOP Assocation Conference

When individuals find joy in their work and feel the team is committed to helping them thrive both personally and professionally, employees seek accountability. Healthy accountability comes from strong interpersonal connections and teams who are skilled at building shared commitments. 

The Disconnect

Having healthy accountability seems to already be a given in ESOPs, where the financial incentive fosters a culture of caring for one another and the organization’s success. However, not all employees immediately recognize this connection; some may perceive accountability in terms of completing tasks rather than interpersonal relationships. ESOPs often over-emphasize the financial benefits of employee ownership, sometimes overlooking the importance of creating an environment where employees feel empowered to contribute to organizational decisions.

Employee ownership does not guarantee healthy accountability in an organization. To fully harness the advantages of employee ownership, employee owners must be empowered to come to the table full of curiosity and engagement, as well as being personally invested in the team. Healthy accountability is about creating an environment where employees can build impactful interpersonal connections, and have strong shared commitments with their teams.

Employee owners who foster healthy accountability engage in the following:

Support one another as fellow owners Take pride in their work and workplace Innovate to enhance process improvement and meet customer expectations Demonstrate mutual trust and respect Take an active interest in improving how the company operates and achieves financial success

If you are a leader in an ESOP organization, it is important to nurture these attributes amongst employees. By promoting a culture of healthy accountability, you create an environment where employee owners thrive, leading to sustained organizational success. Join Good Leadership’s Accountability Research Project to contribute to groundbreaking research in this area. Email info@goodleadership.com to learn more.

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